


Three Christmas (Eves)

by sistercacao



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistercacao/pseuds/sistercacao
Summary: Duo and Heero make some traditions of their own.





	Three Christmas (Eves)

**Author's Note:**

> Amazingly, a Christmas fic I _did not_ write for the GW Advent Calendar! Originally posted to LJ in 2012, just because I had a sappy fic idea and I wanted to share.

AC 203  
  
He found Heero standing on the balcony, just beyond the dining hall where the Preventers holiday party was in full swing. He had been looking for him for about a half an hour, because as sociable as everyone thought he was, he still got exhausted trying to be merry for three hours with a bunch of agents who were twice his age and had seen half of what he had. This was always a strange time of year for him anyway; it stirred up memories that made the time that had passed-- God, was it almost ten years already?-- seem not long enough at all.  
  
He had the feeling Heero might have felt the same way, so he had gone looking for him.  
  
“Jeez, it’s freezing out here,” he muttered, and Heero turned and watched him approach. He looked none the worse for having been standing in the cold for God knew how long, though his cheeks were a little rosy beneath his messy hair.  
  
“Duo.”  
  
“Had enough merriment for one night?”  
  
Heero snorted.  
  
“Guess so.”  
  
The balcony overlooked a corner of the vast Sanc gardens, of which only the evergreen hedgerows showed any sign of color. Everything else was bare, the empty tree branches framing the balcony glistening with a thin sheen of ice. The snow on the ground shone mutely under the lights strung among the trees and bushes.  
  
It was kind of nice, despite the cold. Quiet, too.  
  
“Yeah, I think I’m all partied out, myself.”  
  
Heero glanced at him.  
  
“I thought you enjoyed this kind of thing.”  
  
“Well, the free food is all right, I guess.”  
  
He grinned at Heero, who gave him a tiny smile in return. The older they got, the more expressions Duo discovered Heero was capable of. Their coworkers still thought he was a tightass, and maybe they were right, but compared to the kid Duo knew once, he was downright jolly.  
  
Then again, most of his coworkers still thought the gundam pilots were psychotics, so what did they know, anyway?  
  
“You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if everyone was here,” Duo continued.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Think Chang and Noin have to go to the holiday party on Mars?”  
  
Heero shrugged.  
  
“From what he says, all they do up there is work.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure this is work,” Duo replied, and gestured at himself. “Hell, I’m in my uniform.”  
  
“You’re allowed to drink. It isn’t work.”  
  
Duo chuckled.  
  
“Yeah. Guess not.”  
  
They stood in silence for a moment, just watching the dim glitter of the lights on the snow. Duo’s fingers were going numb, even stuffed in his pockets, his hands balled into fists to warm them up.  
  
He had been thinking about asking Heero something for a while, but the moment had never seemed appropriate. It was almost too late to ask, now. It probably was. But the cold, the late hour spurred him to finally say it.  
  
“Hey, Heero, what are you doing for Christmas?”  
  
Heero turned to him. He seemed a little surprised at the question.  
  
“I don’t know. When is it?”  
  
Duo laughed.  
  
“Wednesday night, man. Jesus.”  
  
“Oh. I don’t have any plans.”  
  
“Nothing?”  
  
Now Heero seemed a little embarrassed. His brows furrowed together in the center of his forehead.  
  
“No. Do you?”  
  
Duo shook his head.  
  
“All right, then, why act like something’s wrong with  _me_  for not having plans either?”  
  
“Do you want to come over?” Duo blurted.  
  
The annoyance on Heero’s face vanished.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Come over to my house. In fact, come Tuesday night, stay over. I have a guest room.”  
  
Heero stared at him.  
  
“Why?”  
  
He started to get a little nervous. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. Heero looked dumbfounded at being invited over. Had he ever had Heero to his place before? He didn’t think so. He had thought about asking several times, but he had always talked himself out of it. He had been afraid of being turned down. That Heero didn’t care about his friendship as much as Duo cared about his.  
  
God, he could be a real coward sometimes. He couldn’t back out now.  
  
“Because... it’s Christmas. You’re not supposed to spend it alone.”  
  
Heero was quiet for a long time.  
  
“Should I bring anything with me?” he finally said.  
  
“Oh! Uh, I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. Bring something to drink.”  
  
He was flustered, a little red from nerves. He had really convinced himself Heero was going to turn him down. And now they were going to spend Christmas together! Why had he waited so long to ask?  
  
Heero nodded at his instructions.  
  
“All right.”  
  
Duo could feel the smile widening on his face. Suddenly, it wasn’t quite so cold outside.  
  
* * *  
  
They sat on his couch, quietly watching the movie Duo had run out to buy when he realized he had nothing for them to do together. He was pretty proud of his selection: it took place on Christmas  _and_  it had explosions. It was perfect.  
  
There was a tree set up in the corner of his living room, strung up with a couple strands of lights that some guy down the street had been hawking. The tree was fake, of course; he had taken one look at the prices of the real ones and blanched. It was still nice to look at, he decided, even if it didn’t smell like a real pine tree. When he was a kid, the church had had an enormous tree, massive in his mind, towering over them like a giant. In his memory, he swore it was real; he could remember the smell, the prickly feel on his hands when he touched it.  
  
But maybe it was just his memory playing tricks on him. He had been a little kid, after all. He wasn’t sure they even had real pines anywhere on the colony. That seemed like a stretch.  
  
Earlier in the night, Heero had asked him why people put trees in their houses on Christmas. Duo had realized he had no idea. Those couple of Christmases at the church were the only real ones he’d ever known.  
  
“It’s a tradition,” he’d said with a shrug. “You never celebrated Christmas before?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No. I was always... training.”  
  
 _Training_  was a fantastic euphemism for the kind of things Duo had heard from Heero about him going through as a kid. Neither of them really talked about that stuff very much, it didn’t serve any purpose, beyond dredging up old memories that were better off left to rest. But hell, at least there had been a brief part of Duo’s childhood that had been happy. Christmas was part of that, he supposed. Maybe that was why it bothered him that Heero had been spending it alone. That they both had been.  
  
The movie was almost over, and Duo could feel himself growing tired. Must have been the wine. He had a couple more movies to watch, but he planned to save those for Christmas itself. They had less explosions, and more spirit. He had always watched them alone, a little tradition of his own, he supposed, but this time he had a friend to watch them with, and that made the whole thing a little more special.  
  
They finished the movie and moved to take their empty glasses to the kitchen. Duo left them in the sink to deal with later. He covered a yawn with his hand and turned to Heero.  
  
“Well, I’m heading to bed.”  
  
Heero nodded.  
  
“Me, too.”  
  
“I’ve got some stuff for breakfast. I hope eggs are good with you.”  
  
“That’s fine.”  
  
“All right, Heero, good night.” Duo headed to his room, but paused at the doorway and turned back. “Merry Christmas.”  
  
In the bare light afforded by the softly glowing tree, he could see Heero smile.  
  
“You, too.”  
  
* * *  
  
AC 204  
  
There was a card on Duo’s desk the morning of the holiday party. It was enclosed in a blank envelope with his name written neatly on the front. He eyed it as he took off his coat and gloves, damp with melted snow, making sure his hands were dry before he picked it up.  
  
The card inside featured a little cheery snowman, smiling in the front lawn of a quaint-looking house, and in the little painted window he could make out a tree and a roaring fire, all glowing with welcoming light. He opened the card and read:  
  
 _Merry Christmas.  
From, Heero_  
  
He closed the card and turned it back over, staring at the picturesque illustration on the front blankly for a few seconds. Opening it back up, he read the words over again a few times, then set the card neatly on his desk, propped slightly open, and sprinted out the door and down the hall.  
  
Heero shot a concerned glance upward when his door came flying open, before seeing it was Duo, a little out of breath.  
  
“Duo, are you okay?”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and he could feel his face get a little hot. “Wanna come over for Christmas Eve?”  
  
This year, to Heero’s credit, there was no ‘why’, just a nod.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
A smile spread across Duo’s face. He plunked down on the edge of Heero’s desk.  
  
“I was thinking I would make dinner this year. What do you think?”  
  
“All right. Should I bring anything? I don’t know how to cook.”  
  
“Neither do I,” Duo said with a laugh, and earned a little sidelong glance from Heero. “Hey, how hard can it be?”  
  
Heero snorted.  
  
“Maybe I should bring takeout.”  
  
“Shut up, Yuy. Just bring drinks, and dessert if you really feel up to it.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
The week flew by. Duo spent every waking moment that he wasn’t working looking up recipes, taking copious notes, preparing more rigorously for this event than he ever had for a mission. Last year had been a little haphazard, a little too thrown together, but this time, he was going to show Heero a real Christmas, something worthy of what he remembered from years ago.  
  
He eventually decided on a roast, because it seemed like the least easy for him to fuck up, and a couple of sides he could make with ingredients out of a box. Heero called him a few hours before dinner, when Duo was obsessively checking and double checking the temperature of the oven. He found himself strangely nervous when he picked up the phone.  
  
“Hey, man, what’s up?”  
  
“I don’t know what to buy for dessert.”  
  
“Buy whatever you want. What do you like?”  
  
“... I don’t know. I don’t eat dessert very often.”  
  
“Get a cake or something, they have them in the supermarket already made. Does that work?”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
He pulled the roast out of the oven when the temperature on the thermometer read the same as what the recipe called for. Well, it looked all right. Who knew what it was going to taste like, though. The stuffing and macaroni and cheese were no brainers, at least, and they had come out pretty good. Guess this cooking thing wasn’t so difficult after all.  
  
Heero arrived when he was setting the table, bags in hand. He took out a bottle of wine and placed it on the table, then reached into the other bag to pull out a massive cake that looked like it could feed 10 people.  
  
“Jeez, Heero, you planning to invite anyone?” Duo said, laughing.  
  
Heero shrugged.  
  
“I know how much you eat.”  
  
They put the food out on the table, Heero’s brows shooting up his forehead when he saw what Duo had managed to make.  
  
“Duo, that’s pretty impressive.”  
  
Duo could feel heat come to his cheeks and he quickly shook his head.  
  
“Don’t get too excited. I haven’t tasted it yet.”  
  
He went to take his seat and looked up to see Heero had already cut off a slice of meat and was chewing experimentally.  
  
“It’s really good,” he said matter-of-factly.  
  
Duo grinned nervously.  
  
“Were you worried?”  
  
Heero looked at him across the table.  
  
“Maybe a little.”  
  
He gave Duo that tiny smile and Duo answered with a giant, beaming grin.  
  
They managed to finish half the roast and most of the side dishes, as well as a decent helping of Heero’s enormous cake.  
  
“I hope you don’t mind having this again tomorrow,” Duo said as he put the leftovers away in the fridge.  
  
“Not at all,” Heero replied, and Duo shot him a glance to see if he meant that sarcastically, but he watched Duo from the entryway to the kitchen with nothing so much as a smirk on his face.  
  
“Hey, look what I found,” he said suddenly, and went to the door to fetch something from his coat.  
  
He came back with a movie case in his hand.  
  
“It’s the sequel to the one we watched last year.”  
  
Duo took the case and looked it over.  
  
“Oh, awesome! Have you seen this?”  
  
Heero shook his head.  
  
“I was waiting to watch it with you.”  
  
Duo felt a strange little turn in his chest. He handed the movie back to Heero.  
  
“I’ve got something for you too.”  
  
He had kept the card on the kitchen counter so he wouldn’t forget to give it to Heero. In truth, though, there was no way he would have forgotten. Heero looked the envelope over in his hands, reading his name across the front, before gently tearing it open to pull out the card inside.  
  
The front showed the inside of a house, much like the one glimpsed through the window in the illustration on the card Heero had given him. There was a Christmas tree strung up with lights, the floor around it littered with presents. In front of it, two people sat, their backs to the viewer, one’s arm draped around the shoulders of the other. The shadows cast by the fire at their sides made it hard to pick out any details.  
  
Duo had stared at the card for a long time when he had found it in the store, feeling a strange pang when he looked at it, knowing who it was intended for. He wasn’t sure what font of courage he had drawn from to actually buy the damn thing, but now that Heero was looking at it, his expression inscrutable, Duo found himself nervously picking at the hem of his shirt, wondering what the hell he had been thinking.  
  
After a moment, Heero opened the card, his eyes moving over the words inside. At first, Duo had just written back what Heero had put in his card:  _Merry Christmas. From, Duo._  But it didn’t feel like enough. It didn’t feel like what he really wanted to say. So he had added a little bit more.  
  
“Merry Christmas. This one, and many more to come,” Heero read quietly. “From, Duo.”  
  
He folded the card back over, looking at the picture on the front a little longer. Then, he looked up. Duo ran a hand through his hair, the smile threatening to wilt off his face.  
  
Those blue eyes studied his for a moment. Then, Heero broke into a smile, a real one.  
  
“Thanks, Duo.”  
  
He would never have given that card to anybody else, he realized then. He didn’t want to spend Christmas, something so special, with anyone but Heero.  
  
“All right, let’s get drunk and watch this movie,” Duo said, patting Heero on the back and steering him to the living room.  
  
It was Christmas Eve, and he was with Heero. It was almost all he could ask for.  
  
* * *  
  
AC 205  
  
“I don’t see the point of a gift exchange,” Heero muttered as they hustled through the bustling department store, dodging other shoppers in the crowd. “We don’t even know who we’re buying for.”  
  
“Hey, I like that part,” Duo said. “Takes the pressure off.”  
  
Heero frowned.  
  
“No it doesn’t. How am I supposed to know what to buy? I don’t even know if it’s for a female or a male agent.”  
  
“That’s why we’re heading to the housewares department. Can’t go wrong with a coffeemaker, right?”  
  
They weaved their way through the men’s clothing department, passing by a counter displaying expensive watches behind a glass case. Heero paused to look into one of the displays.  
  
“You’re going to get a watch, Heero?”  
  
“No, not for the office swap. Look at that.”  
  
He pointed through the glass at a small pocket knife, which had several other slots from which various implements extended. There were a few knives of varying sizes, a corkscrew, a pair of scissors, and a small file which looked to Duo like it could be very useful for picking locks.  
  
“I could use that,” Heero said, looking down at it intensely. “Anyway, let’s go.”  
  
They made their way to housewares, where Heero eventually chose a toaster oven for his unknown recipient. Duo picked out the coffeemaker he had come set to buy. Well-prepared for the season, the store had several rolls of wrapping paper set up by the registers, and they grabbed one that seemed the most work appropriate.  
  
“I don’t know how to wrap presents,” Heero admitted.  
  
“Neither do I,” Duo laughed. “Let’s go look it up back at your place.”  
  
They had come from Heero’s apartment, driving up together after dinner. Duo cooked regularly now, and it came out pretty good most of the time. Not that long ago, Heero had decided he wanted to learn, too, so now they divided cooking up between the both of them. It had made dinners together a lot more frequent, something that Duo would never complain about. Usually, there was a movie afterwards, and one night, after slightly too much wine, Heero had admitted he had bought a TV just so Duo could come over to his place sometimes, too.  
  
Duo had not shared with Heero exactly how that admission had made him feel.  
  
They had decided on turkey that year for Christmas, though Duo was more than a little apprehensive about trying to prepare it. Heero would make the side dishes and bring them to Duo’s place; even though they regularly spent time at Heero’s apartment, too, there was an unspoken understanding between them that Christmas took place at Duo’s house. It was where they had first spent Christmas together, and it just wouldn’t feel right to do it anywhere else, he supposed.  
  
Besides, he still had that damn tree, and he was not planning to lug it halfway across town under any circumstances.  
  
On their way back out of the store, they passed the display case with the knife, and Heero gave it another glance before they left. They went back to his apartment and spent a couple of hours looking up wrapping techniques before trying them out on their purchases, with varying success.  
  
On his way back home, Duo swung back to the department store, which was impressively still open, always ready to accommodate holiday shoppers with large pocketbooks. He went right back to the counter in the men’s department, waving an employee over to pull the knife out of the case and show it to him.  
  
“This is an extremely fine piece of Swiss craftsmanship,” the clerk said, giving Duo the knife to examine, “with a lifetime warranty.”  
  
He looked it over in his hands, the black finish of the handle glinting under the overhead lights. It was pretty damn cool, and he could see why it had caught Heero’s eye. The largest knife slipped in and out of its sheath with an easy flick of the wrist, and the various other implements could be extended quickly and returned to their slots without difficulty. It fit nicely in his hand, and folded up small enough to disappear into his pocket. It was expensive as hell, but that part didn’t really matter to him.  
  
“I’d like to buy this, please,” he said, handing it back to the clerk.  
  
“Certainly sir. Is this a purchase for yourself or for someone else?”  
  
“Oh, uh, someone else.”  
  
He didn’t know why, but the admission made his face heat a little.  
  
“Would you like it engraved?”  
  
“Engraved?” He hadn’t even thought about it. “With what, a name?”  
  
“It can say whatever you’d like it to say.”  
  
“Huh. All right. Yeah, sure.”  
  
“Great. Please fill out this form with the message you want it to say.” The clerk slipped a piece of paper across the glass counter with a pen.  
  
Still feeling that warmth coloring his cheeks, Duo picked it up and started to write.  
  
* * *  
  
“The turkey could have been a little better.”  
  
“Duo, it was fine.”  
  
“I think I used too much salt. It said to soak it in brine. Maybe it was too briney.”  
  
“Duo, it was delicious.”  
  
Heero was starting to sound annoyed with having to reassure him he didn’t ruin dinner. Duo grinned, clearing the scant remainders into the garbage disposal.  
  
“All right, I’ll take it.”  
  
They took slices of cake over to the living room, movie in hand. Duo sat down on the couch, a sudden flurry of nerves twisting his stomach. He had been planning to wait for Christmas, but it was Christmas Eve that had become a tradition of theirs, and it didn’t feel right, somehow, to wait until the actual day to give him his gift. It just felt like it had to be done right here. Right now.  
  
“Want me to put in the movie?” Heero asked.  
  
“Wait,” Duo said. “I, uh, I have something for you.”  
  
It had been sitting in his closet for weeks, burning a hole in the back of his mind. He was both dying to see how Heero reacted and strangely terrified at the same time. He left Heero in the living room, looking confused, to retrieve it.  
  
Heero saw the little wrapped box in his hands as he headed back to the couch, and stared at it. Duo swallowed around the tight lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.  
  
“Well, here you go,” he said, thrusting it into Heero’s hands.  
  
Heero looked down at it for a minute without a word.  
  
“Duo... you didn’t have to.”  
  
“Shut up, Heero,” he said, picking at his shirt. “Open the damn thing.”  
  
Heero worked carefully at the tape at the edges of the wrapping, as if he knew how long it had taken Duo to get it looking exactly right and didn’t want to ruin it. He folded one edge back, then the other, then lifted the box out of the paper and turned it in his hands, finding the flap to open it and reaching inside. When he pulled out the knife, his eyebrows shot up into his bangs.  
  
“Duo...”  
  
“It’s uh, Swiss,” he found himself saying idiotically, and ran a hand through his hair to try to calm his nerves a little.  
  
Heero shook his head softly, glancing at Duo with a strange uncertainty.  
  
“You remembered I liked this.”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, of course I did.”  
  
“I...”  
  
“Turn it over, it’s engraved.”  
  
Heero flipped it over quickly. His eyes ran over the words, etched delicately into the finish of the hilt.  
  
 _For my best friend._  
  
For a long time, he was silent, just staring at the engraving. Duo began to worry he had made a mistake.  
  
“Duo...”  
  
Heero looked at him, as serious an expression as Duo had ever seen on him.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Duo gave him a crooked, nervous smile.  
  
“You’re welcome, Heero.”  
  
“I... have something to give you, too.”  
  
“What?” Duo stared at him. “You got me a present?”  
  
Heero nodded and shot up from the couch.  
  
“I was going to wait until tomorrow, but... I think I want you to have it now.”  
  
Duo stared at Heero’s back as he rifled through the pockets of his coat to produce a wrapped box of his own. He hadn’t expected a present from Heero. He had gotten Heero one because... because he knew it would make Heero happy. And he had a kind of indescribable joy of his own when he did something to make Heero happy.  
  
Was it the same for Heero?  
  
Heero handed him the box and sat down on the couch.  
  
“Heero... Jeez...” The lump in his throat felt orange-sized now. “Thank you.”  
  
“You don’t even know what it is yet,” Heero said, and ran a hand through his bangs. Was he nervous?  
  
The box was surprisingly heavy for its size, and he resisted the urge to shake it. He tried to take the same care with the wrapping paper that Heero had shown his, though part of him wanted to tear it to pieces to see what Heero had bought for him. He thought of that card Heero had gotten him last year, the glowing warmth of the house’s window, how uncharacteristic it had seemed at the time that Heero would choose it for him. He had no idea what kind of gift Heero would think of, and that only served to make him more anxious.  
  
Inside the paper was a little box with a tiny card taped to it.  _For Duo._ He worked the box open and set the lid aside, then looked in.  
  
For a moment, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Then, he realized, and his heart thundered in his chest, threatening to burst right out of his ribs.  
  
It was a small, jagged piece of flat metal, roughed on the edges and scorched across the front. The flat black of the surface seemed to reject the reflection of any light, but the numbers painted across it gleamed dully in the yellow and red sparkle of the Christmas tree: 02.  
  
He knew, looking at it, exactly where it could have come from. The wing had had a serial number but it was larger than this. But on the dashboard, beside the main control panel, there had been a small series of numbers, including the pilot’s number. 02. He had liked to run over it with his fingers, feel the smooth edge of the painted numbers against the flat matte black paint underneath.  
  
It was a piece of Deathscythe.  
  
He sat with it in his hands for a minute, feeling almost unable to breathe. He could feel Heero’s gaze on him, but his thoughts were a mess in his head, his throat too tight to speak anyway.  
  
When he did manage to speak, it was hardly even a whisper.  
  
“Where did you get this?”  
  
“I’ve had it for... a while.”  
  
He looked up and found Heero’s face pale, bright spots on his cheeks. He sounded nervous as hell, but nothing like what Duo felt. Jesus.  
  
“How... how long?”  
  
“195.”  
  
Ten years. He almost couldn’t believe it. A confusing set of implications swirled in Duo’s head. He looked down at the numbers on the shattered gundanium plate, a piece of himself that had been lost years ago, returned to him now. It was more than a gift. It was much, much more.  
  
“Why?” he whispered. “Why did you keep this for so long?”  
  
He looked at Heero, who looked away.  
  
He was quiet for so long that Duo didn’t think he was going to get an answer. But finally, Heero spoke, his voice suddenly hoarse.  
  
“Because it reminded me of you.”  
  
Duo stared at him, then at the piece of metal in his hand. Gently he put it back in the box, and set it down on the table. Heero still wouldn’t meet his gaze.  
  
“Heero.”  
  
Heero looked at him unsteadily.  
  
“Duo, I...”  
  
But Duo reached for him then, curling his fingers around the base of his neck, and pulled him forward until Heero’s lips met with his own. He could feel the thundering of Heero’s pulse under his palm, as frantic as his. But his hands came up around Duo’s shoulders, gripping his back, and he sank into the kiss, his mouth opening softly, warm and sweet and inviting, and Duo surrendered to it.  
  
When they broke apart, it was with shortened, shaky breath, still wrapped in each other’s embrace.  
  
“I love you,” Heero said, then frowned. “Sorry, I don’t know if I was supposed to say that.”  
  
Duo laughed, his whole body warm, burning hot.  
  
“Yes, you were.”  
  
He pulled Heero’s mouth to his again, because there was nothing he could say that couldn’t be conveyed much better like this. They ended up splayed across the couch, Heero beneath him, his fingers gripping hard into the fabric of Duo’s shirt, arms strong and sure around him.  
  
Duo pulled back to look at Heero, who gazed up at him, his lips slightly slack, his blue eyes half-lidded, like the most beautiful present Duo could ever receive.  
  
Heero gave him a small, cocky smile.  
  
“I don’t think we’re going to watch this movie.”  
  
Duo laughed.  
  
“No, definitely not. In fact... I think maybe we should start a new tradition instead.”  
  
“Oh yeah?”  
  
“Yeah, right here.”  
  
Heero gave the couch an unfocused glance.  
  
“Here?”  
  
“Yeah,” Duo said, kissing him again, and there were no more protests on the matter.  
  
He had loved every Christmas they had spent together, every one of them special and unique. But this was a perfect Christmas Eve, and Duo knew that the Christmas that would follow, and every Christmas after, would be perfect, too. Because he would always be spending it with Heero, spending it with the person he loved most in the world, and that was the most important tradition of all they had invented together.


End file.
